Brand Echh: Herbie #8

It’s been a while since we looked in on ol’ Herbie–so here’s another classic story, the origin of his costumed identity as the Fat Fury. This story was produced in the midst of the super hero craze set off by the Batman television show in 1966, which suddenly made costumed crusaders a topic of conversation in the zeitgeist again.

The story here, as with all of the Herbie adventures, was written by ACG’s head editor and writer Richard Hughes, here using one of his regular pseudonyms, Shane O’Shea. Artwork was produced by Ogden Whitney, who worked on the Skyman strip during the Golden Age.

Whitney sneaks his old character Skyman into that final panel on this page. It’s also interesting to see both LBJ and Barry Goldwater depicted full-on in a super hero comic book–most other companies during this era avoided depicting politicians most of the time.

There’s Skyman again in Panel One. I suspect his feat of beating up a thousand men had been exaggerated in the telling.

As we worked out last time, that plunger on the Fat Fury’s head is intended to make him resemble a lollipop, the source of his awesome powers.